Abstract
Scholarly attention on Russia in the period since the fall of the Soviet Union has tended to concentrate primarily on developments at the centre, in Moscow. This focus is understandable, both in terms of the importance of politics in the capital for both the country as a whole and the world, and of the intrinsic interest of Russian developments. However, there has also been a politics occurring in the regions, and increasingly scholars have been taking note of this. The course of such politics has been shaped overwhelmingly by two factors: the relationship with the centre, and the way power has been structured at the regional level.
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Notes
Cameron Ross, Federalism and Democratisation in Russia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 8.
Cited in John B. Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 62. He reaffirmed this during the treaty-making period. Segodnia, 31 May 1994.
These are listed in Jeffrey Kahn, Federalism, Democratization, and the Rule of Law in Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 10.
For information about the ethnic populations within the Russian Federation and in each of the subjects of the federation, see V.A. Tishkov et al. (eds), Narody rossii. Entsiklopediya (Moscow: Nauchnoe izdatel’stvo “Bol’shaya Rossiiskaya Entsiklopediya”, 1994), pp. 433–41.
For one study of how this has worked in practice, see Peter Reddaway and Robert W. Orrtung, The Dynamics of Russian Politics. Putin’s Reform of Federal-Regional Relations. Volume 1 (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2004). For the relevant presidential decree and the parliamentary resolution, see Rossiiskaya gazeta, 16 May 2001. On the districts and their presidential envoys, see Kahn, Federalism, pp. 241 and 243.
Paradoxically, this measure seemingly designed to reduce the governors’ security of tenure coexisted with a January 2001 amendment to the law concerning the terms of governors which effectively allowed 69 incumbent governors to seek a third term and 17 a fourth. Richard Sakwa, Putin: Russia’s Choice (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 153.
For one attempt to chart levels of democratization in the regions, see Christopher Marsh, “Measuring and Explaining Variations in Russian Regional Democratisation”, in Cameron Ross (ed.), Russian Politics under Putin (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2004), pp. 176–97. Marsh (pp. 193–4) argues that, on a range of one to five, where five is the highest level of democratization and one the least democratic, and based on participation levels in gubernatorial elections and votes for candidates other than the winner, 6.4 per cent of regions scored five, 28.2 per cent four, 39.7 per cent three, 15.4 per cent two and 10.3 per cent one. These figures apply to 78 regions.
For some surveys, see Mary McAuley, Russia’s Politics of Uncertainty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)
Vladimir Gel’man, Sergei Ryzhenkov and Michael Brie, Making and Breaking Democratic Transitions. The Comparative Politics of Russia’s Regions (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2003)
Kelly M. McMann and Nikolai V. Petrov, “A Survey of Democracy in Russia’s Regions”, Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 41, 3, 2000, pp. 155–82
Nikolai Petrov, “Regional Models of Democratic Development”, Michael McFaul, Nikolai Petrov, and Andrei Ryabov et al., Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Russian Post-Communist Political Reform (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004), pp. 239–67. Also see the references in Petrov, “Regional Models”, pp. 335–6, note 1.
See Henry E. Hale, “Explaining Machine Politics in Russia’s Regions: Economy, Ethnicity, and Legacy”, Post-Soviet Affairs 19, 3, 2003, pp. 241–2.
Neil J. Melvin, “The Consolidation of a New Regional Elite: The Case of Omsk 1987–1995”, Europe-Asia Studies 50, 4, 1998, p. 642. Italics in original.
V.V. Mikhailov, V.A. Bazhanov and M. Kh. Farukshin (eds), Osobaya zona: Vybory v tatarstane (Ulianovsk: Kazanskoe Mezhdunarodnoi Pravozashchitnoi Assamblei, 2000)
V.V. Mikhailov (ed.), Respublika Tatarstan:demokratiya ili suverenitet? (Moscow, 2004).
Kimitaka Matsuzato, “From Ethno-Bonapartism to Centralized Caciquismo: Characteristics and Origins of the Tatarstan Political Regime, 1990–2000”, The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 17, 4, 2001, p. 55.
For a discussion of this, see Matsuzato, “From Ethno-Bonapartism”, pp. 59–60. In another context, see Henry E. Hale, “Machine Politics and Institutionalized Electorates: A Comparative Analysis of Six Duma Elections in Bashkortostan”, The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 15, 4, 1999, pp. 70–110.
For discussion of a celebrated case of this, see Peter Kirkow, “Regional Warlordism in Russia: The Case of Primorskii Krai”, Europe-Asia Studies 47, 6, 1995, pp. 923–47.
For a regional breakdown of dominant economic interests, see Robert W. Orrtung, “Business and Politics in the Russian Regions”, Problems of Post-Communism, 51, 2, March–April 2004, pp. 52–4.
For another analysis, see S. Peregudov, N. Lapina and I. Semenenko, Gruppy interesov i rossiiskoe gosudarstvo (Moscow: Editorial URSS, 1999), ch. 5.
On regional alliances between local representatives of the organs of power, major regional bureaucrats and representatives of new business being known as the “party of power”, see V.N. Berezovskii, Politicheskaia elite sovestskogo proshlogo i rossiiskogo nastoiashchego priemy i metody konkurentnoi bor’by (Moscow: Tsentr politicheskoi kon’iunktury Rossii, unpublished, March 1996), p. 26.
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© 2007 Graeme Gill
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Gill, G. (2007). Introduction: Power and the Russian Regions. In: Gill, G. (eds) Politics in the Russian Regions. Studies in Central and Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230597280_1
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